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Bipartisan senators seek decision from Trump by Thursday on gun control

FILE PHOTO – Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) speaks during a roundtable discussion with U.S. first lady Melania Trump, local and state leaders at Cabell-Huntington Health Department in Huntington, W.V., U.S., July 8, 2019. REUTERS/Al Drago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A bipartisan group of three U.S. senators on Wednesday said they were attempting to revive legislation that failed in 2013 to close loopholes on the law requiring gun sale background checks, but were awaiting word on whether President Donald Trump will support their effort.

Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Chris Murphy, along with Republican Senator Pat Toomey, told reporters they had a 40-minute telephone conversation with Trump in which the president was engaged on the issue of gun control. They added that they hoped Trump would convey a decision by Thursday.

“Our best chance of success would be to broaden background checks to include commercial gun sales,” such as those conducted over the internet and at gun shows, Toomey said.

He added that those sales, largely unregulated, provide a way “for violent criminals and those dangerously mentally ill to have a way to easily obtain firearms.”

Manchin, referring to Trump, said, “We’re going to know hopefully by tomorrow if there’s something we can all agree on.”

In December, 2012, a shooter killed 26 people, including 20 young children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

The mass murder sparked a long gun control debate in the U.S. Congress that produced a Manchin-Toomey background check bill in the Senate. Votes on that bill and other gun control measures failed in April, 2013.